Entries tagged with movies

Finished my festivid entry last weekend, so now I have a new challenge. Trope bingo

food porn

au: apocalypse

secret child

secret twin / doppelganger

de-aged

au: space

kiss to save the day

soul bonding / soulmates

au: daemons

fake relationship

immortality / reincarnation

accidental marriage

FREE★SPACE

sharing a bed

handcuffed/bound together

cross-dressingtd>

au: cop / detective

game night

au: were / vamp / supernatural

au: historical

kidfic

au: circus

presumed dead

holiday

road trip

It's really fun. I mean, I'm currently writing an au: were/vamp/supernatural fic for The Hour, which sounds ridiculous, which on a level it is, but it's actually become a really fun exercise in world building since to pull that off, I've got to come up with a plausible explanation for why vampires and werewolves would exist in London in 1957 and what the world would be like if that happened, and what it would be like if they worked as a team on a TV news show. Anyway – I am having fun.

(FYI, I very much believe the key to good crossovers, AUs and crack is you've got to take your premise seriously and properly run with it).

In other things: Watched Call the Midwife as am in a 1950s mood, and is that not just the most perfect little drama ever? It's just magnificent and I want to hug it for being just so wonderfully humanist and not at all soapy and all about women.

Also watched Les Mis. I did not cry. Which is pretty damning really, since I cry at everything, including the trailer for The Impossible which aired right before the movie. I just didn't connect. But aside from my lack of connection, it was very well done.

Feels like ages since I made post. Just been busy and cold. It's hard to type when you can barely feel your hands. Anyway, so stuff I've been watching lately.

1. Toy Story 3 – Guys, guys, if you're on the fence about seeing it, jump off and run straight towards a movie theatre. It is the best of the three and a worthy way to end what has go to be one of the greatest movie trilogies ever. It's funny and dark and heartbreaking and just...it got to me in ways I didn't think movies could any more, completely overriding that cynical voice in my brain that says 'this is a family film' and leaving me on the edge of my seat, especially in one scene which I shall not name, but if you've seen it, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's just brilliant.

2. The Crow Road. It's a BBC miniseries from 1996 about a young man, Prentice, charged by his Grandmother to investigate the disappearance of his uncle Rory seven years earlier (Rory's played by Peter Capaldi, if your wondering as to why I tracked this down). And it's a wonderful four hours of telly. There's a fantastic script and an all-round great cast giving brilliant performances. It's got this wonderful ethereal feeling and there's a mystery within a mystery and flashbacks within flashbacks and somehow it all flows wonderfully. And it's about faith and cynicism (I think best optimised by Prentice's father who is a hardcore atheist but who firmly believes ) and family. And I really recommend it.

Oh, and Peter Capaldi's hair is EPIC. I'm talking having gone straight past James May and started encroaching on Brian May levels of epic. It has to be seen to be believed.

3. Little Dorrit. It'd been meaning to watch this for ages because I loved the Bleak House adaptation the BBC did a few years back and figure this would be just as good. Sadly, it wasn't. It was good, it just wasn't as good, mainly because the plot was far more wandering and not as tight as Bleak House's (that may be an issue with the source material though, and not the production). And while the cast was good, no one stood out as amazing like Gillian Anderson did as Lady Deadlock in BH.

Although, it does have an incredibly high 'hey, it's X from Doctor Who' quotient, with Rory, Martha, Gwen, Midshipman Frame, Bracewell and Magpie of Magpie's electronic all showing up at some point or another, providing it's own form of entertainment.

4. Finally, for the past few months I've been watching Lewis, although I've been a bit loathe to admit this as I have spent years mocking my best friend for enjoying Midsommer Murders which is of a similar vein. Anyway, so basic plot is Inspector Morse's sidekick now has his own show and his own sidekick in the form of Mr Billie Piper, Laurence Fox, and they solve murders in the land of Oxfordshire where it is always summer, academia is the world's most dangerous profession and even murderers are pleasant people. I just love it because it feels like a throwback to the days when TV cops did have to have a dark past or a weird tick and before it became a competition to see which boundaries could be pushed the furthest. So there's no CSI-ing, no beating up suspects, no bending the law to achieve results. It's just a good, old fashioned mystery series.

Biggest crime though is how dreadfully underutilised Rebecca Front is as the resident chief superintendent. She basically shows up three time an episode and tells the boys off. I hate it when TV shows decide to put a woman in a position of power and then proceed to give her no role besides nagging boss who is more-often-than-not wrong. And I think Rebecca Front is fantastic. Use her more, show.

I haven't made a substantive post in ages. So here is one which I have decided shall contain good news and awesome things:

1.Heroes got cancelled! I view this as a good thing because I believe with no more canon being created it'll make it easier for me to believe that season two onwards never happened and Heroes was a one-season wonder.

2. I can't believe they cast Allison Janney on Lost. Allison freaking Janney. That is both a) awesome and b) a enormous pain in the ass because that means I may have to actually go and watch the entirety Lost even though she's only in one episode (thus is the power of Allison Janney)

4. Armando Iannucci's got funding for a new movie (a lot of funding when compared to the budget of In the Loop), one written by him and Will Smith (not that Will Smith, the other one who plays Phil in TTOI). Yay!

(And I'm going to nag you all once again to watch In the Loop because with it having being released on DVD everywhere now, there is no excuse of not having seen the movie anymore and you all should because it's one of the funniest comedies of all freaking time and it may even change the way you view politics).

5. Oh, my goodness do I love Ashes to Ashes at the moment. I do have a couple of criticisms (which are ongoing), but generally, I am so in love with this season. Nobody I know IRL watches the show (I know a few people who tried the first series but decided it was inferior to Life on Mars and stopped watching) and they tend to give me quizzical looks when I rave on about it. But this season is amazing.

But my particular love of the season comes from my new-found OT3: Ray, Shaz and Chris.

I'll put down my thoughts on Doctor Who tomorrow, right now I'm going to review: Kick Ass because it's the best film I've seen all year. It made me nearly want to forgive Nicolas Cage for not having made a good film since Adaptation, it's that good!

So Kick Ass is about a teenage boy (Aaron Johnson) who, armed only with the powers of naivety and optimism, dons a wetsuit and decides to become a superhero, Kick Ass. As this show is set in a world very close to reality, he gets his ass kicked quite badly, but becomes an internet sensation, and later through a series of events becomes the target of a powerful mob boss (Mark Strong) and a reluctant ally of the deranged but effective Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage) and his equally deranged/brainwashed pre-teen daughter Hit Girl (Chloë Grace Moretz.)

It's one of those films where you can't quite tell what genre what you're watching is. On the one hand, it's a piss-take of the superhero genre in general, yet it loves it characters enough to take them seriously and deliver them a movie that has fight scenes up there with The Dark Knight. In that way, it's kind of like Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, it's movie that not only spoof the genre but are also loving and loyal to it.

But it also provides a strange social commentary, particularly through the character of Hit Girl who seems to be comment on that connection we make between violence and awesomeness in female characters. ( Cut for minor spoilers )

Anyway, besides that, the action scenes are amazing (it is really violent though and earns it's R rating, but I didn't find it to be worse than The Dark Kight), it's hilarious in places, but it's more straight than funny, particularly in the third act. And I'm going to keep my eye on Aaron Johnson because he was fantastic (I was quite thankful looking him up on Imdb that he makes the n/2 + 7 cut off, because he's gorgeous). Chloë Grace Moretz was also brilliant.

If you're okay with excessive violence and language and found Hot Fuzz to be brilliant, go see this movie.

I watched this movie a few months ago, and it's stuck in my mind for some time, because it is a very memorable movie (as you shall see if you read further) and also because that due to the presence of Mr Peter Capaldi, it has become my crack Malcolm Tucker backstory. And after being inspired by a conversation over at the_thickofit, here I go, picspamming an 1980s movies you all shall probably never watch, but if you read the below, you shall see that his movie really does have to be seen to be believed.

A quick run down before we begin. The Lair of the White Worm is a so-bad-it's-good horror-comedy film from 1988 made by Ken Russell. It took a lot of creative licence with the Bram Stoker novel of the same name. The reason it caught my attention was that it happens to star a young Peter Capaldi and a young Hugh Grant, who are both very hot in this movie. It's completely bizarre in a kind of awesome way (two words: Snake Vampires), and the ending is definitely fantastic.

The film's basically one giant piss-take of the common horror trope that female sexuality=evil, so it of course goes completely over the top with the promiscuous evil doer, the sacrificial virgin and more phallic symbols being wielded around than you can shake a stick at.

Word of warning: this film passes the Jamie McDonald test of movie quality, meaning there will be blood. And also, there will be tits.

It's Oscar weekend and I'm all actually excited about it this year cos In The Loop's up for an award (though it should be up for two - Peter Capaldi was robbed). Anyway, to celebrate, I made 15 In The Loop gifs.

(Warning, below the cut is image heavy. I'll spare your flists and not do a preview).

I've seen a few movies. Saw Sherlock Holmes and really enjoyed it. I spend the movie thinking to myself 'they're just like House and Wilson' and then realising I was failing because the comparison should be the other way round. I also couldn't help but think that the movie would have been improved by the presence of Jason Statham or Vinnie Jones.

Also saw The Lovely Bones. I know it's been getting mixed reviews but absolutely I loved it. I haven't read the book (been meaning too for years, but just never got around to it) so I can't compare, but what I really loved about it was that it gave teenage girls a lot of power. Teenage girls don't feature in thrillers except to be victims (with the exception of another Peter Jackson film, Heavenly Creatures) – and okay, this does not entirely change that, but by following the impact of the death of one victim of a serial killer and rapist, it treats the victim as more than just a cheap and faceless motive to drive some angsty detective – and the person who her death does drive is her little sister. Though the film is not really a true thriller anyway, it's thriller mixed with a bit of fantasy/horror and a lot of family drama.

In terms of Peter Jackson's films, I also see it as something as a sequel to Heavenly Creatures. After all, Heavenly Creatures has teenage girls creating a fantasy world, taking up residence and then murdering to protect it. The Lovely Bones has a teenage girl murdered and taking up residence in a sort-of fantasy world which is how she creates it.

In the absence of the Thick of It, I've been checking out the creators and actors past work and discovered Knowing Me, Knowing You...with Alan Partridge, which is utterly hilarious. It's a chat show in which everything that can go wrong, goes wrong and the host is a basically a narcissistic idiot. Alan Partridge is of course Steve Coogan who had a cameo in In the Loop, but the Thick of It connections really come from the show being co-created and co-written by Armando Iannucci and Rebecca Front appears in every episode playing a different guest.

The scene you all have to watch, and my favourite part of the whole series is the Abba medley (or why Steve Coogan didn't get a part in Mama-Mia).

I'm going to check out I'm Alan Partridge next.

And on the subject of The Thick of It, I have somehow convinced myself that the future of the show will be announced shortly after Gordon Brown calls the election – there's nothing to support this conviction of mine, but I can't help but get impatient with him about the election calling, particularly after events this week, since the PM in The Thick of It called the election specifically to quell dissension in the ranks and stop a leadership coup.

I wanted to do a big 2009 picspam, but could not decide on a format. Then and idea struck me: since I'm forever lamenting entertainment awards' inability to make the right decision, why not do my picspam in an award sort of format, with the awards categories themselves completely made up and arbitrary so I could just picspam things I liked this year and could find photos of. Good idea, yes?

Just got in from seeing Avatar and it is very, very good. The trailer does not do it justice. It is much, much better than the trailer. Oh, and it was the first movie I've seen in 3D, which was cool.

Okay, the plot is ridiculously predictable and has been done a million times before, and there are no shades of grey. But it does it in a manner that’s not too heavy handed, the good characters are likable, the bad guys detestable, and the female characters have a sense of humour (which I have decided is my go-to test of whether or not the writers have bothered to put any effort into writing the female characters) and the dialogue isn’t clunky. It’s a big budget Hollywood movie in which the good guys fight the bad guys - but it does it so well.

But the special effects and the world that they’ve created is amazing. It’s not quite photo realism, but at the same time, you don’t really notice the CGI at all. And it’s absolutely beautiful. I can’t stress that enough. The world of this movie fantastic.

Oh and there’s a well done romance at the heart of it, which I think I shall point out because it used to be that the big blockbusters had major romances running through them. But it’s rather rare these days for movie to bother with a romance. Usually they’re just an afterthought. (I have this theory that Casablanca would not be made today).

My recommendation is: Find the biggest screen you can and watch it in 3D.

1. The other day I was thinking about who in RTD's Who universe, the same ideas keep on being used throughout with new spins on them (for example, the idea behind Father's Day was used in Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane, and that evolved into Turn Left, or the repeating motif of the bride, and something occurred to me: ( cut for speculation based on casting spoilers and the ending of Children of Earth )

2. Watched V and was really disappointed. The buzz coming out of comicon was that it was brilliant, but the dialogue was appalling at times, the characters really thin and the whole thing was executed with the subtly of an anvil (it really doesn't get more heavy handed than a crucifix falling over and shattering as the space ship enters orbit). Plus it felt so rushed.

3. The latest episode of House was also disappointing. Although is about time the writers managed to find an excuse to get Hugh Laurie back in a period costume.

4. In other Hugh Laurie-as-the-Prince-Regent related win: I cannot believe I did not know of the existence of this Annie Lennox music video until a couple of days ago. Though really, who would pick John Malkovich over Hugh Laurie?

5. I miss Blackadder.

6. I've really gotten into FlashForward after the last episode. But then, how could I not with the casting that show has. Last episode had Sulu, Shakespeare and River Song investigating some crazy nihilist cult lead by Leoben. Not to mention, the huge disaster at the heart of it was apparently caused by the alliance of Meriadock Brandybuck and Steve from Coupling.

7. A trailer for Invictus has been released which is a movie I really want to see for many reason, rugby being one of the few sports I will actually watch on occasion, and I do remember watching that particular World Cup match when I was a kid (of course, I was cheering for the other team, and it will be interesting to see how the media in NZ covers the movie since it's widely believed that the All Blacks were deliberately poisoned before that match). I really want to see some day a movie made about another the 1981 Springbok Tour of New Zealand, which was another time rugby and apartheid mixed. I just think the mixture of the two teams playing against each other against the violence between police and rioters outside the stadiums would make for an awesome sports movie. That's me though, if I made a sports movie it wouldn't be feel good flick, it would be about violence, politics, racism and New Zealand's screwed up national psyche.

8. Finally, I have developed a crush on David Strathairn. Is that weird?

Nothing much to report. Work has been stressful for the past couple of weeks and it's that funny time when the sun is out but it's still cold and lately I've been feeling lazy and all I've been wanting to do is curl up in bed with DVDs.

Watched The Chatterley Affair. I love, love, love the concept of this movie, which is that two of the jurors in the Lady Chatterley's Lover obscenity trial embark upon an affair and decide to enact the sex scenes in the book. It's all there for debate: sex, love, art vs pornography, censorship, class, etc. Execution could have been better though. It felt like it needed another half an hour at least to actually explore the main characters and give a bit of meat to the Twelve Angry Men style juror scenes or the issues at the heart of it. Plus, it could have done with some more inspired direction.

Also, David Tennant has a cameo, and it is win.

Also in legal dramas featuring actors who've portrayed the Doctor, I watched “Let him have it” which is a biopic starting a very young and adorable Christopher Eccleston about Derek Bently, a nineteen year old kid who was hung for murder in Britain in the 1950s. He was tried and found guilty for murder under joint enterprise for the killing of a policeman. Bently was intellectually disabled and would under modern law probably have been found to have diminished capacity, didn't have or fire a gun, was technically under arrest at the time and the phrase that was used to convict him 'let him have it' probably was telling his co-offender to give the cop the gun, rather than shoot someone with it. Anyway, he was hung and later given a full pardon.

Couldn't help but compare the movie to the far superior Pierrepoint (which I raved on abouthere), and again, could have done with a bit more of the legal debate and public reaction.

Also, I have been listening to the BSG season four soundtrack a lot lately, particularly the Daybreak disk, which is the last outing of the magnificent themes that developed over the series and often they gorgeously merge into one another. The ending of Assault onthe Colony stands out in particular, where at about ten minutes in it changes to Kobol's Last Gleaming which then merges into The Shape of Things to Come and then again on into All Along the Watchtower. There are about twenty other tracks I could rave on about (like the use of Gaeta's Lament in Blood on the Scales, I didn't notice that in the episode, or how being able to sit at a piano and start playing Kara Remembers would be a really neat party trick), but I shall spare you all. Yes, I think Bear McCreary is a genius. Although one who should sometimes just say 'no' to bagpipes (they do work amazingly well in big battle pieces, but not in emotional moments).

Finally, I bought Sports Night the complete series on DVD and am not so patiently waiting for it to arrive in the mail. Expect me raving on about why you should all watch this late 90s sitcom in the weeks to come.

1. I've been spending what little free time I've had lately vidding, and amazing movie maker's actually working, only crashing once every three hours or so max and it's saving. By writing that, I've probably now jinxed it, but it is such a freaking miraculous development I had to post about it.

2. Saw District 9, which is very good, if a little gory. Yay for originality and intelligence in an action-y summer movie.

3. Is True Blood any good? I'm still in BSG-withdrawal and trying to get over it by rental-stalking the cast and my girl crush on Michelle Forbes and residual Cain love might just be enough to get me past my aversion to vampires.

4. Speaking of the above, I have an 'Admiral Cain is totally one of the greatest villains like ever!!!!!' meta posts in me, but I'm tired right now.

5. I managed to pick up all three of the Back to the Future movies on DVD for a ridiculously low price, and this makes me exceptionally happy. I need to pick up the Indiana Jones movies and The Goonies and my beloved childhood movies collection shall be complete.

6. There was a six, but for the life of me, I can't remember it right now.

Lastly and just because, three Starbuck vid recs:

Art Bitch by hollywoodgrrlThe summary is Kara Thrace is SUCH an Art Bitch and OMG, she totally is. I love when vids present a fun and new perspective on characters.

Learn to Fly by jarrow (Starbuck/Kat) Imagine how awesome a slashy vid about two dueling top gun space pilots could be, then add on another pile of awesome and you've got this vid.

I'm Not Dead by dualbunny An amazing vid about Kara Thrace which touches upon her personality, the important relationships in her life and best of all, her season four arc and manages to do it with such a brilliant cohesion that I wouldn't have thought possible.

Hollywood's complete inability to come up with an original idea is only second to the writing of female characters in romcoms when it comes to making me despair about the current state of big-budget entertainment, and rebooting Battlestar Galactica again, so soon after it was just successfully rebooted, just proves how ridiculous it's getting. First of all, why? The 2003 reboot only provided six years of acclaimed television, lasted longer than the original series and spawned a spin-off. Was is not successful enough? Secondly, there is no way comparisons would not be drawn. And I understand it, if they return to the original material (I haven't actually watched the original series), there would be no Roslin or Six (or any of the other skin-job model Cylons for that matter), Baltar would be properly evil rather than, well, Baltar, and Starbuck, Boomer and Admiral Cain would all suddenly be men. Weird.

I watched The Edge of Darkness recently, a political thriller about nuclear weapons from the BBC, which aired originally in 1985. It is bloody good. Basically, it's about a cop who witnesses his daughter's murder which causes him to investigate and in turn become involved in a conspiracy involving governments, environmental protesters, secret agents and some wonderful larger-than-life characters. It gets a bit nuts, but just when I think its skirting the edge of credibility, I remind myself that the French government sent secret agents half way around the world to blow up anti-nuclear protest ship in Auckland Harbour the very same year it aired, and so things really were a bit crazy back in the 1980s.

While normally when I watch old TV, I kind of have to adjust my mindset to take into account the low budgets, sub-par effects and the plodding pace, going on twenty-five years after it originally aired it holds up. It seems the BBC actually spent money on it, and the direction and pacing holds up by today's standards. And thinking about its impact, I think it's clear Ashes to Ashes in particular borrows heavily from it, and the daughter hanging about the main character after her death makes me wonder if it was the first time the ghost trope was used on television. These days, its hard to think of television shows that don't have characters talking to dead people.

I also re-watched Children of Earth, and if any one character gets to come back, can it please be Johnson? I've decided she's my favourite of the new crop, as not only is she incredibly competent and morally ambiguous but for a purpose, but they also bothered to give her a degree of compassion, a quality writers don't usually bother with in secondary characters of that nature. Plus, I want Alice back, but that might be because Johnson/Alice is my Torchwood OTP, as messed up as it would be. Oh, and I want Lois as the new Ianto and creepy dude as the new Tosh, because they'd get left behind in the hub while the rest go on missions, and watching Lois constantly one-uping creepy dude to keep him in line could make for great entertainment.

I've been working on this fic for the femgenficathon and I've gotten over my fear of writing in a new fandom, got most of the characters and tone right and pulled it back from being too talky (all my fics seem to start off with way too much dialog and I have to cut tonnes of it out). But somewhere along the way, it stopped being gen. Well, it's borderline, but since I'm pretty conservative in my definition of gen, I wouldn't be comfortable with it classifying it as such. It's not a problem, I can just post it outside of the ficathon, it's just amusing to me that it happened. I blame BSG and the insane level of UST between the political elite on the show and the love dodecahedrons.

Also: the trailer for The Lovely Bones has come out. To be honest, I haven't read the book, but I'm all kinds of excited because of the Peter Jackson factor. While I love the Lord of the Rings movies and thought King Kong was great, I actually think Peter Jackson is at his best mixing fantasy with period suburbia, like he did in Braindead, Heavenly Creatures and The Fighteners, and I'm really excited to see him return to that kind of film making.

And because I'm bored and coz I love making numbered lists:

Ask me my fannish Top Five [Whatevers]. Any top fives. Doesn't matter what, really. And I will answer them all in a new post.

Movie Rec: I saw In the Loop yesterday and it's the best film I've watched at the movies all year, and also the funniest movie I've watched in longer than that. It's a political satire about a British cabinet minister who after a bit of a gaff about a potential war in the Middle East, finds himself in Washington being used as a puppet by both the anti-war and pro-war portions of the US Government. It's got some of the most glorious and creative insults, threats and curses in cinema history (oh, how I would like to see what the airline version of the film would be like - probably a five minute film of various characters looking at each other). Best character has to be Malcolm Tucker, who is both the villain and the guy you find yourself rooting for just because he has some to the best lines and is the most competent of the bunch, and if you weren't already thinking Peter Capaldi is brilliant after Torchwood, you will be after this.

Plus, it also adds a lot of weight to my current theory that the best things dealing with Iraq are the things in which the word 'Iraq' is never used.

I said it in my review of Day Five, but now that the immediate reaction's worn off, I stand by not wanting to see Jack Harkness again. First of all, I think pop culture needs a cull of emo immortals because the 'Everyone I know dies while I stay eternally young, pretty and healthy' thing has been done to death and I am absolutely utterly and truly sick of it.

Secondly, I don't think Barrowman's got the acting chops to really do the devastation to Jack at the end of Day Five justice in a long term sort of capacity. He does a great intergalactic playboy and he did really well for Barrowman in CoE, but I often cringed when it came Jack's big emotional moments through series one and two of Torchwood.

But mostly, I'm just sick of TW!Jack. Doctor Who!Jack was wonderful. I loved him with Nine and adored his appearances with Ten, but he's well and truly dead. I don't think a post-Day 5 Jack could show up on DW unless the write the character so OC the Torchwood watching audiences would throw things. TW!Jack always seemed to me to be a different character because they were trying to peg the fun, action-sidekick into the dark and brooding leader role and managed to mess up what I liked about the character doing it, creating this character I hated because he wasn't the character I loved.

Anyway, the character had gone, his leaving was upsetting, but also it felt right. I hope they don't bring him back. Plus, there's Gwen, Johnson and - if they want to keep it in the family - Alice, who could all act as replacements.

I'm very late to comment, but I love Eleven's costume. And I have exactly the same Converses as Amy Pond. Except I've worn holes in the soles of mine so I can't really wear them anymore.

Speaking of Eleven, over the past few days I watched Neverwhere. It's really too late to jump on the Paterson Joseph for Eleven bandwagon, isn't it? Not that I have any problem with Matt Smith and I'm really excited about seeing him in action (2010 is not coming quickly enough).

Anyway, Neverwhere was good, a bit predictable in the big bad (particularly if you've read Sandman) but I loved the setting and I'm sure everyone who plays the UK version of monopoly can appreciate one of the characters being an actual angel called Islington. Unfortunately it was completely let down by it apparent production budget of £2.50 and some choices of direction which might possibly have been interesting in 1996, but have not aged well. Watching it I couldn't help but wish for a movie remake, because it'd be Harry Potter meets Pirates of the Caribbean (I couldn't help but compare the Marquis de Carabas with Jack Sparrow) and the lead character just screams for James McAvoy to play him. But it's apparently 'in-development' so I'm not holding my breath.

(I'm becoming very bitter with Hollywood at the moment since nothing I want to see adapted ever makes it out of development hell. And if I don't want to see it adapted, it tends to be one of the biggest movies of summer.)

I think I'm the only person in the world who hasn't seen Harry Potter yet. I'll get there maybe next week or the one after that. I kind of blew my movie budget being dragged to see Star Trek for the second time last week. Well, not so much dragged as tagged along with Flatmate and her kid brother. I've decided the movie is doing something a bit wrong since the thirteen year old kid brother came out with the impression that Kirk was smarter than Spock, and also the question “So, Spark, is he a Cylon?”

Being another unknown, there's really much to say about the new companion other than I really like her hair and I hope her character's going to be Scottish rather than another Londoner. It struck me on seeing a photo of her just how young Team TARDIS 2010 is going to be.

Speaking of Doctor Who, I was always a bit 'meh' about the idea of a Doctor Who movie, but when I was watching Star Trek XI recently I was thinking to myself about how cool it would be to watch other beloved sci-fi TV shows on the big screen with movie grade special effects, so I’m all for it now. Can I put a vote in for Ten and Donna team up there. Tennant being the iconic Doctor of the new series would have to be involved, and I've had my fill of one-off companions at the moment – I prefer it when I can create some attachment to the character - so I'd definitely be for bringing back Donna and/or a post-crush Martha. A multi-Doctor story with Nine and Eleven. Even better if they can get One through Eight in there somewhere somehow. And I'd imagine it'd be a Dalek story. Because, really, they would be the villain in a big screen version of the show.

Also, awesome news that Ten's going to be in an SJA story, and in a major role too, not a cameo.

I finished watching Law & Order UK and really hope there's a second series. I thought the main prosecutor guy was a bit dull, but other than that it was excellent. Best thing about it is that it reminded me why I have a huge great big crush on Jamie Bamber, because I really didn't find him all that attractive in BSG. While I did have my moments of Apollo love, I usually found him dull at best and down right annoying at worst. Anyway, L&O UK has got me re-watching Hornblower at the moment for poor doomed Kennedy.

Finally, I checked out the pilot of The Middleman and I love it. Major bonus points for Wendy mentioning she reads Astro City. So I'll watch the rest of that series when I have a chance.

1. I hate is when one silly little thing ruins my entire day, but somebody ate the curry I'd been saving for lunch. It was korma with chicken, spinach, green beans and mushrooms and it was gorgeous, even if I do say so myself because I made it. I discovered somebody had eaten it five hours ago, and I am still not over being annoyed about it.

2. Thanks to the parental units making a trip through duty free, I have feijoa vodka. I love feijoa vodka

3. I’m always falling for television shows in which the characters burst into song, and Glee is no exception. I watched the pilot and it's love. If you can, watch it. It's not quite as oddball as Blackpool or Flight of the Conchords, but it so very adorable. It is officially the show I am most excited about come the fall schedule.

5. Finally, after he moaned through the first three seasons when we were watching them, we've actually managed to convert my flatmate's boyfriend to BSG. Bwah ha ha ha ha .

6. I have become thoroughly convinced that Utopia/Sound of Drums (+ The Christmas Invasion & The Last of the Time Lords, I suppose) is RTD blatantly paying homage to elements of BSG. And now I've thought it, I cannot un-think it and the parallels they are so very there, down to a diegetically used song with a Hendrix connection.

7. It's weird, but I have the biggest movie cravings for westerns at the moment. Probably because I watched Dances with Wolves for the first time ever and it was so pretty, the landscape has a bit of a romantic appeal for me right now.

1. I redesigned my lj. I'm kind of proud of it because for the first time, I myself did the header and modifications to the colour scheme myself (from a layout from the_fulcrum). I went to a bit of a BSG theme. Next up is to redesign my profile.

2. Speaking of BSG, I signed up for the bsg_bigbang. Twenty-thousand words by October. I learnt my lesson from the tardis_bigbang last year – no time travel plots with twists that do my head in when writing it. Instead it's going to be a nice linear more character driven New Caprica story.

3. Lame video store that did not have any Star Trek movies besides the franchise-killing Nemesis bought itself Star Treks I through V. I'm going to check them out one of these days.

4. In the mean time, I watched Blade Runner for like the first time ever and not only did I understand how much Red Dwarf: Back to Earth was a spoof (I knew it was a bit of a spoof, but I didn't realise the extent), but also, I get the deal with the pigeon in the BSG final now. It was very educational. Kind of like when I watched The Untouchables and finally understood why there was a baby in pram in every single movie made in the 1990s.

5. I'm stoked Jack Davenport's pilot got picked up as a series. Shame Katee Sackhoff's didn't. I know it was basically Law & Order: Cold Case in a market already oversaturated with procedurals, but I for one would have watched it for Katee Sackhoff.

6. I don't think the season finale of House was as good at the episodes leading up to it. And I'm so used to season finales of House having some massive twist, I kind of guessed it a minute into the episode – which possibly ruined it for me. Still, I hope Amber sticks around for at least the first couple of episode of next season.

7. The latest episode of Ashes to Ashes, however, I think was one the best yet so far. I'm loving the mystery at the heart of it.

I dragged flatmate to go see Star Trek. Even though our tastes in sci-fi tend to be the same, it did take considerable negotiation to get her to the one. I am another for whom Star Trek is part of my childhood, although I've always been more Next Gen than TOS – namely because I cannot remember a time when I didn't loathe James T Kirk. Anyway, so I went there with nostalgia and Kirk-hating, and flatmate went in there all cynical about the movie. We both thought it was brilliant.

Anyway, flatmate in particular walked out and voted TOS as the next series we should watch once we finish Battlestar Galactica. So mission most certainly accomplished most definitely with the bringing the franchise back to life and opening up to new fans.